Bioethics in Faith and Practice, Volume 4, Number 1

29 Bioethics in Faith and Practice ⦁ 2019 ⦁ Volume 4 ⦁ Number 1 Bioethics in Faith and Practice vol. 4 no. 1, pp. 29-29. ISSN 2374-1597 © 2019, Heather Kuruvilla, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ) Bioethics, Law, and the Opioid Crisis: Revisiting the Concept of Incarceration versus Rehabilitation Zach Krauss Cedarville University Introduction The opioid crisis has taken the country by surprise over the past decade or so. Since the issue has become relevant because of its danger to the public, more and more information has become available about not only the dangers for addicts, but also for affected families and friends. The opioid crisis has caused at least 600,000 deaths to date, and is expected to increase to almost 800,000 by 2020. 1 Opioid addiction afflicts about 10 percent of the approximately 20 million United States residents who struggle with substance abuse disorders. 2 The 2017 UN report on narcotic use shows that the United States is a significant outlier compared to other countries. The US leads the world in narcotic use by 50% over the second place country, Germany. 3 The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports that the availability of opioid medications in the US is much higher than in other countries. The US is ahead of Germany by over 20,000 defined daily doses for statistical purposes (S-DDD) per million inhabitants, almost double the roughly 23,000 S-DDD measured in Germany in 2011. 4 1 Max Blau, “Opioids could kill nearly 500,000 Americans in the next decade,” https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/27/opioid-deaths-forecast/. June 27, 2017. Accessed August 16, 2017. 2 American Society of Addiction Medicine, “Opioid Addiction 2016 Facts and Figures,” American Society of Addiction Medicine (2016). 3 International Narcotics Control Board, “Narcotic Drugs - Technical Report,” Accessed 4/13/2019. https://www.incb.org/incb/en/narcotic-drugs/Technical_Reports/narcotic_drugs_reports.html 4 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, “Opioids use,” Accessed 10/10/2019. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/652ef96a-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/652ef96a- en&mimeType=text/html